Government apologizes for ‘false positive results’

It took fifteen years for the Colombian government to apologize for one of the darkest chapters in its history: those known as “false positives,” the extrajudicial executions of innocent young people the military posed as guerrillas to inflate its successes against the FARC guerrillas.

There were 6,402 of them, according to data from the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP).but this Tuesday, in the central square of Plaza Bolívar in Bogotá, the Government, headed by the Minister of Defense, Iván Velásquez, lost amnesty for 19 “false positives” committed in 2008 in the department of Norte de Santander (border with Venezuela).

Julián Oviedo, Carlos Alberto Redondo, Mario Alexánder Arena, Diego Alberto Tamayo and Omar Leonardo Triana are some of these 19 young people from the town of Soach, neighboring Bogotá, who were deceived by promises of fake jobs killed and presented as guerrilla combat casualties by the military in Norte del Santander.

Despite the years, There is no single mother whose voice does not break when she speaks loudly on behalf of her son.. “I am the mother of Diego Armando Marín Giraldo, the boy who was killed by the 15th Brigade of Norte de Santander,” said Rubiela Giraldo.

Like her, the mothers of these 19 boys took the stage one after the other, with hand-drawn portraits or photos of their children and white shirts. “I didn’t think an excuse would be offered,” said the first of them, Gloria Ástrid Martínez, mother of Daniel Alexander Martínez, in disbelief.killed on February 9, 2008.

“Thank you very much,” some mothers said simply, taking the microphone, after repeating their children’s names. But despite the gratitude for the act, The mothers pointed out that he is late, and the excuses come from the Government, which has nothing to do with the events.: “This act should be an act of forgiveness and it should not be the current minister (the one doing it),” Martínez alluded.

While Florinda Hernández, the mother of Elkin Gustavo Verano Hernández, who was killed on January 15, 2008, directly indicated. “It was Juan Manuel Santos, the one who should have been present to show his face and ask for forgiveness”critically.

Santos, who as president received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2016 after signing peace with the FARC, He was one of the defense ministers during the worst years of extrajudicial executionswhich coincided with the government of Álvaro Uribe (2002-2010).

The JEP, a special court created by the peace agreement, which went the furthest in judging this episode, found that the armed forces developed a “macrocriminal pattern” in which the paramilitaries also participated and this ended the lives of 6,402 young people, especially people with low incomes.

Since then, Mothers like those from Soache went in search of their children, to find the bodies that had disappeared. But also because of seeking justice and finding out “who ordered” that they be killed.

In turn, the Minister of Defense pronounced the names of “mothers who for so many years fought bravely for the truth, for justice, for guarantees of non-repetition”. and that of his children; names that the state denied for years that they killed them. “(Young people) wouldn’t choose coffee,” Uribe even said, but years later he regretted those words.

“To honor their memories, to tell Colombia and the world that they are 19 young people whose families and friends Today we accept with respect and solidarity, they were not guerrillas, they did not carry out any criminal action, they did not undertake any confrontation with military forces.; “These were people whose lives, dreams and illusions were cut short by the criminal actions of members of the national army,” the minister pointed out.

Therefore, on behalf of the Colombian state, he assured: “We apologize for these crimes that shame us in front of the world, we recognize the responsibility of the state in their execution” and thus recognize, as one of the mothers emphasized, that “these crazy women were right” in their search for justice.